II
The next morning, Friday, March 8th, before giving Frederick an opportunity to communicate with his mother, I read her my letters to Cass, wishing her to know just what had occurred and my attitude toward it. Then we turned to planchette.
From this point, the account is taken from the original manuscript. At first we did not realize the importance of writing in our questions, some of which we were unable to remember later. During those first days, also, the messages were sometimes confused by other messages written over them, or by lines and circles done in apparent excitement and joy, and were impossible to decipher afterward.
Frederick’s writing, from the first moment with his mother, was quick and firm—at that time the most rapid and consecutive I had ever seen done through planchette, although in comparison with later communications these were slow and fragmentary.
“Mother dearest,” he began, immediately, without question or comment from either of us.
She told me that this had been his name for her, which I had not known. He went on, writing eagerly, with brief pauses between phrases.
“I am here, dearest.... Just believe.... Mother, you do believe, don’t you?... Tell me you do.”
After replying to some questions, he began making the small circles first noticed during the preliminary episode when his sisters were in New York. I asked what they meant.